City of Spartanburg upgrading and replacing equipment

Spartanburg, SC – WSPA – The city of Spartanburg is spending nearly $2.5 million dollars to upgrade essential equipment for police. First responders and public works department.

The spending was approved by the city council last night and the money is already in the budget.

For Sarah Beth Woodfin, a cone filled with the right flavor and service, keeps customers coming back to HUB City Scoops.

Positioned in downtown Spartanburg at a spot where police can patrol and watch out for them.

“They’re always willing to walk us out of work, when it’s dark or when we just feel that it woukd be a little bit safer to have them with us,” said Sarah Beth Woodfin, Hub City Scoops.

On Monday night, Spartanburg city council voted to make sure public safety has enough money to continue protecting its citizens.

The council allocated nearly $2.5 million dollars out of the general replacement fund, for new police cruisers, public service equipment like dump trucks used to haul things around and even radios for police.

“If you were to instead of replacing that equipment, stretch that maintenance out over time, it actually wold be more expensive for the tax payers,” said Christopher George, City of Spartanburg, Communications Manager.

Major Art Littlejohn with the city police department knows the value of having updated equipment when your working to protect and serve.

“All the information that we need is right there in the car, in that officers office and so that’s why those things are very important that we continue to upgrade those things,” said Major Art Littlejohn, Spartanburg City Police

This spending is not unique to 2019. Every year eqipment across the board is accessed for their viability.

This year they’ll replace two dozen police cars, radios and at least 13 vehicles in other departments.

“There is more that is getting near the end of its useful life, but we figure we can get one more year out of it and so we try to sqeeze all the juice out of that orange that we can,” said Christopher.

For people like Sarah Beth, that’s good news.

“We really appreciate their service and all they do for us,” said Sarah Beth.

The public should start seeing the new equipment in the next few month.

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